M&M suffers loss of Rs 30 crore as workers go on strike

Workers in Nashik plant of the automotive major Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) on Sunday went on one-day ‘tool down’ strike to meet their demands and to support their union leaders, who are already on indefinite hunger strike for the last five days. As a result, the company suffered the production loss of around Rs 30 crore on Sunday (March 3, 2011) due to closure of its Nashik facility.

Meanwhile, an indefinite hunger strike, waged by the office-bearers of M&M Employees’ Union, including its president, vice-president and general secretary, entered sixth day on Sunday as no settlement was reached between the union and the management. The union has demanded inclusion of Grade N-1 workers into Grade O-2 and ‘equal pay to equal work’

“Nashik plant of M&M has around 3,000 permanent workers. Of which, around 1,800 workers are under Grade O-2 with salary range between Rs 23,000 and Rs 24,000, while rest of the 1,200 workers are under Grade N-1 with salary of around Rs 9,000. Our demand is to include these 1,200 workers under Grade O-2,” Pravin Shinde, General Secretary, M&M Employees’ Union, told Business Standard.

These 1,200 workers are the skilled workers and doing the same quality work like Grade O-2 workers, but they are getting very low salary of Rs 7,000 after deduction. In today’s age of inflation, it is not possible to run a family at such a lower salary. Hence, we had urged the M&M management to give justice to these 1,200 workers,” Pravin Shinde added.

M&M’s Nashik facility, which is located at Satpur area of Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC), manufactures around 550 vehicles daily, including 300 units of Xylo and Scorpio, 200 units of Bolero and 50 Logan cars. “The production of 550 vehicles were affected as all workers went on one-day ‘tool down’ strike on Sunday. The production losses on Sunday due to closure of Nashik plant are estimated at around Rs 30 crore,” sources said.